CUCC Expo Logbook 2023

Progress after the first 3 days of expo

July 4th (today)

The weather forecast shows rain and thunderstorms today and tomorrow, which jeopardizes caving. People are hiking down to base camp. Meanwhile, Martin, Jana, and I have put the second tarp up at base camp, while Radost and Phil have been setting up electronics here.

Canon Ball Run - Austria (Attempted)

Three blokes from Cardiff Uni on their first Expo with CUCC. Left a house at Reading with the goal of getting to Bad Ausse in a single day. A task deemed challenging at best, stupid at worse. The saga begun at 1:30 am. With a base camp eta of 9pm we excitedly exited the ferry hitting the motorway heading for Germany.

It was cool runnings for the first 700 km. Until the dreaded check engine light appeared with the car going into limp mode on the scary lane of the Autobahn. A maccies and petrol station near Stuttgart were quickly found, breakdown was called. The wait for rescue was painful wondering if we would make it to Austria. Support arrived with grim news. Problem with the turbo, needs to be taken to a garage which is open in the morning. Arrangements were made at a local hotel to the cost of the drivers entire expo budget.

The morning came with a nervous trip to the local garage with baited breath. Good news came with the problem quickly being diagnosed as a sensor issue. After the pricey hotel breakfast the Autobahn was returned to making it to Munich in good time. Passing Munich on the last stretch to Austria, things were looking up.

This was until a black bmw slowly changed into our lane with the feared follow me sign in the back window. We nervously followed the Rozzers to a nearby police station where our papers were thoroughly checked, with one of them quizzing a passenger on whether they "smoked". Thankfully we were back on our way, we thought that we had a clean journey to the border ahead.

Yet again a black bmw slowly moved in front of us with their sign flashing. Another check without the fishing for drugs. After this whole ordeal we arrived at base camp, one day late, with a breakdown and two stops from the police. A beer was cracked with relief!

The first two weeks of expo have been quite eventful, with exploration proceeding in Fishface and Homecoming, and a new camp being set on the plateau.

Garlic Cave

Garlic Cave is located just 20 mins of walking from Homecoming, making it a perfect location to explore the far side of the plateau.
See the great movie by Zac Woodford.

Pic (L to R): Nadia Raeburn-Cherradi, Oakem Kyne, Jana Podbelsek, and Jono Lester at Garlic Cave.


Fishface

A couple of shallow leads were pushed and killed. In terms of deep leads, me (Honorata), Radost, and Mike pushed 60 meters above Clap my Pitch Up which required bolting a muddy traverse (we called it European Federalists). Later, Mike, Emma, Mealy, and Jonty camped in Fishface for 2 days to push the area further, but they were running in loops. The traverse we rigged has a strong draft which seems to be coming from the massive pitch at the end of it. The pitch is likely part of Clap my Pitch Up which had been explored earlier and might even connect to Ulysses above. Mike also explored Perseid Showers which does not seem to go anywhere. In sum, the most promising leads were killed.

Homecoming

A fantastic lead has been explored by Wassil, Chi, and Oakem behind The Second Coming, called Salamander Queen (not to be confused with Salamander Queen II which lies closer to the entrance, under Radagast -- I suppose the salamanders are crawling outwards, hence the reversed numbering). The passage was deemed a good lead because of a strong outward draft. Salamander Queen is achieved by going from Radagast, through The Second Coming, Willfully Endangering Lives, Swiss Cheese, Salamander Queen II, German Engineering, and War of Attrition. It is an approx. 90m deep pitch which seems to continue with a scary down climb. Wassil and Chi intend to camp in Homecoming on Saturday to push the lead further.

Meanwhile, Harry and Charlotte (with the help of Sarah and Becka) have been pursuing another lead in the direction of Watershed, called Plowstone Canyon. It is a phreathic tube with a draft (not a very strong one). They set off to the plateau today to continue pushing it.

Prospecting

A few small caves were explored and killed between Fishface and Homecoming by various groups. Radost and I found a massive cave entrance 5 mins of walking from Homecoming which we named Amphitheater Cave (http://expo.survex.com/1623/2023-hbrw-03.html). The entrance lies approx. 200m directly above the Watershed lead in Homecoming, giving hope that the two caves connect.

Pic: Radost Waszkiewicz at the entrance to the Amphitheater.

We returned there with Ash on July 11th to explore it. We surveyed it until the entrance to the second pitch (70m) and Ash bolted it halfway down it. On July 12th, Ash and Janis returned there to push it further. They arrived at the bottom of the second pitch and continued down a passage which chokes with ice boulders, making further exploration dangerous. Essentially, the lead was killed, but we surveyed about 115 m in total. The second pitch is drippy and has ice patches (independent from the water entering it), and so is Watershed. Perhaps when the ice melts over years, we could return there to push the lead further.

Festering

Meanwhile, rest day activities took place. Me, Radost, Chi, Harry, and Ash went canyoning to Strubklamm near Saltzburg. The canyon is graded V1A3, it is suitable to do without ropes (if jumps up to 10m are acceptable) and can be done on an inflatable unicorn. Alice and Maddie also went there later.

Pic: Christian Kuhlmann on the unicorn in Strubklamm.


Multiple groups went on via ferratas. Me, Radost, Harry, Charlotte, Oakem, and Jonty went to Panorama Kletterstieg Sisi, graded D and located close to the Loseralm parking lot. It is a fun vertical climb -- the scarcity of aids (besides the metal wire) makes it entertaining. The description says the route takes between 1-2 hours but it took us 50 mins with a photo break in the middle.

Pic: Oakem Kyne (L) and Jonty Pine (R) on Panorama Kletterstieg Sisi.

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after a heavy afternoon at the tatty hut, Harry asked if i fancied coming to help push his lead with him. an offer i couldn't refuse. so i yomped up to top camp (with a ludicrous amount of curry) and then the next morning we headed to homecoming to meetup with jono who was coming from garlic cave. he was late so harry and charlotte decided to go down in front to do the rerigging of grommit (after they had cored it the last time). eventually jono arrived and myself becka and him went down into homecoming. the snow plugs were easiy traversed and eventually i was down radegast and into the crawl to the up pitch.

soon i was down in the awkward traverses that led to wallace. we dropped down and wallace and becka gave me a very long description of whyi shouldn't glaze the brand new rope. i ended up down grommit and then headed along the traverse and then swapped from a down rope to an up rope which led up to propane nightmares. there is an odd section of chalky limestone in propane nightmares before the pitch down which could do with ssome geological investigation.

eventually we made it through prpane nightmares and i was show the correct was round the sump pool we ended up dropping down strained by gravity and entering watershed. at the this point i was in front with becka and we tried to find the correct route through the traverses here. up at the start and along and then follow down to streamway level. then at a 90 degree right hand bend you go up halfway and then at eh 90 degree left hand bend you go to proper roof level. this traversing was slightly sketch and eventualy led to two small climbs downa nd the stashed drill.

i was soon taught to bolt by becka and we ahd installed two handlines down the climbs. after this we went further down to the t junction andwent left to nthe sandy changing room. warm layers installed , we set off down the flowstone canyon . this section of cave feels slighlty too much like mendip. with some squeezes that are challenging for the larger gentlemen. after being fat shamed/ pelvis shamed by the final squeeze we entered the pitches down towards the streamway.

the bottom pitches led to a streamway which was the bottom A leads. we divided up and charlotte harry and i went downstream. jono and becka went upstream and it ended at a waterfall. we set of dwonstream and i was taught the basics if paper surveing and swiftly stopped surveying by getting stuck in a tight section .

is easier as a crawl if a larger gentleman. soon the surveying was going quickly and the rift was getting much bigger. sadly we hit a pitch . harry/charlotte went back to retrieve the drill and soon i was bolting my first pitch. this was a small 5/6M that could be freeclimbed if there wasnt and water flowing (unlikely). dropping down the pitch i turned a corner and found another pitch down into a big chamber.

harry bolted this pitch and it dropped into the wet chamber. (deviation needs adding/a bolted traverse before dropping) this chamber then led off round a corner onto another pitch that we didn't have enough rope to drop sadly, althouhg the traverse line is rigged. the lef hand wall at the back of the pitch head is an execllent spot to garden and yieled plenty of large loose rocks. the lead at the bottom of this pitch is a big rift chamber 10M wide and 40M high that soon goes round a left hand bend.

at this point we realised that the survey notebook had started rubbing itself out. we resurveyed some of the legs and eventually started going back upwards out of the cave. the rest of the trip out was quite strenuous and was an introduction and a half to Alpine SRT. i kept going and eventualy got out of strained by grvaity just as harry and charlotte caught up with me. cahrlotte told me to put the cooker on for the noodles. for some reason i set up the gas burner upside down and proceded to light the cave fllor and my hand hair on fire. after the food i set off ahead of the others as i needed to make progress so i had a tme buffer for the srt.

eventually i arrived at the bottom of greommit and met uncle Mike and his group. we set off in the middle of them and evetually i was up the big pitches and struggling along the traversy rifts. at thsi point i was running on fumes and arrived to the chamber before going dwon the up pitch after radegast. here i found a pack of happy bears in my drybag . harry arrived and looked very much like a happy bear upon eating a few.

i then started out of the last few pitches , and after soem struggles with pitchheads i arrived onto the platau to find that my guide back to garlic camp had been sent back and that i was waiting for a new guide who was in the cave. so i stripped off and got into my sleeping bag and had a few hours of uncomfortable platau sleep.

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Blog Author: CUCC Austria Expedition
Administrative note: a few days of rain, heavy at times (1 tent bent, 1 flooded) has led to lots of basecamp nerding. So far, 829m of new passage has been surveyed and recorded and expo has been running nearly 2 weeks.

Full details at http://expo.survex.com/expedition/2023

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Edit this entry

Deciding I needed to get into this prospecting lark and find some new caves we kept an eye out for undocumented potential on our walk up to top camp. The intention was to walk up from the Col to Homecoming and then Garlic cave (also dropping off supplies). Janis GPS trailed the route (being vaguely sure of it having done it the other day). There were several confusing bits and many cairns which were mostly helpful.

The following caves were found on the way up:

• 2023-ASH-01 47.68168N 13.80678E 1695m. Approx 8m shaft with snow at bottom.
• 2023-ASH-02 47.68692N 13.80660E 1722m. Rift dropping approx. 8m to boulder floor.
• 2023-ASH-03 47.69010N 13.80547E 1728m. Large rift of approx. 15m depth. Snow at bottom.
• 2023-ASH-04 47.69176N 13.80512E (UTM33 5282733, 410338), 1721m. Small hole surrounded by bunder, drops approx. 5m with snow at bottom, can't clearly see bottom from top.

Entrance photos were also taken. (Note: These caves are all entered on website).

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The plan was to do some prospecting in the relatively uncovered area around Garlic cave. We met up with Philip at Garlic cave and had some noodles for lunch. Philip had already done some looking around the area and suggested we go look at 2018-DM-04 and 2018-DM-05.

We had one caving helmet between us (the rest of my kit was at top camp). We only got round to looking at 2018-DM-04, following a slightly up and down plateau route to get there. The tag was found underneath a rock.

Got Ely to practice bolting and place the first back up bolt. Then I started down the cave -an open shaft approx. 4x5m. A big flake made a suitable hang point, with with a further deviation put in allowed a good hang down to a large snow plug. This mountain of snow could be carefully passed down one side between the cave wall. A re-belay was necessary with the cave dropping down and to the side. A further re-belay and past the snow now led down to a rocky floor. Unfortunately, there was no further continuation.

Headed back out and then we surveyed before derigging. Named cave Bunderstruck, and is approx. 50m, mostly vertical. Then back to garlic cave to drop off rope (and Philip) before walking across to Top Camp.

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Following an impromptu pre-expo-dinner dinner the night before, we all arose with a tinge of hangover. Rapidly consuming breakfast and packing kit, we set off at 8:30am, only 30 minutes after we said we would which in all fairness is very good going for us. After a smooth ferry to the Loser car park by our wonderful chauffer Alice, we set off up the mountain. Almost immediately after we left the car park a navigational faux pas was made and we found ourselves on the wrong path, and with a small section of off-roading, we headed up to top camp with no other further obstructions.

Upon reaching top camp we were greeted by our fellow plateau dwellers and began the ceremonial scrannage of noodles. Spirits lifted and full of noodles I repaired some of the drill batteries, apparently broken from over-excited handling; followed by a brief faff session and subsequent departure from Stoney Bridge. En-route, I found that bringing my 35-litre rucksack was a mistake. The 100 litres I normally brought was a far more suitable size and the choice to go light for this trip would not be repeated. The resulting journey was incredibly tedious and required a camera in one hand and a sleeping bag in the other. This would become a recurring theme.

Plateau stomping completed, we arrived at the entrance of Homecoming with Ash and Ely closely in tow. Proceeding another bout of faffing and packing, Merren disappeared over the lip of Homecoming and began our quest into the cooler climate we so desperately needed.

Upon entering the entrance series, we began to realise that Homecoming, topologically, is not well suited for dragging camping equipment in. The bags became the bane of our collective existence, constantly getting caught in rifts, getting tangled in ropes, and just being generally annoying. With no small amount of effort, the bags were dragged into Swiss Cheese after surviving the toils of Wilfully Endangering Lives. Leaving our kit behind, free of (some) of our burden, we headed off towards Lizard Queen and beyond in an effort to survey some passage we were unable to survey before and begin some more bolting adventures.

As we bottomed Salamander Queen II I fired up the noodle factory awaiting Merren and Wassil’s arrival. As usual, the flavour sachets were incredibly awkward to operate without becoming caked in grease, so we settled for dry flavouring alone. Better than nothing.

Again full of noodles, we entered German Engineering, more aware of how much two of the bolts needed replacing than before, we carefully traversed the exposed rift. Dropping the next pitch into War of Attrition and traversing the associated rift, we approached the end of what had been seen before. Upon reaching Salamander Queen, I was welcomed by a two-bolt y-hang in slightly chossy rock backed up by a good bolt with the only issue being it had enormous amounts of rub. This needed to be fixed. After descending the pitch, I collected the drill and bolts and began my way back up. Reaching the top I was met by the dulcet tones Wassil and Merren surveying War of Attrition and I began adding more bolts. The back-up bolt was turned into another y-hang and the original y-hang appeared to be in good rock but maybe 20cm below this, the rock crapped out and needed gardening. After pulling up the old rope, Wassil gave in to his gardening addiction and began yeeting large quantities or kitchen appliances down the pitch. After breaking half of the cave, I re-rigged the y-hang on a rope that, this time, did not require a knot pass, and did not rub a scarily large amount. En-route to the floor, a re-belay was added to reduce the chance of being chossed and to enable faster ascending.

As Merren and Wassil surveyed the previous sections, I began to explore and try to locate the most promising lead. At one end of the chamber was a small stream flowing out of the wall. This did not go (but did provide good noodle water). On the other side, I bolted a small, maybe 7m, pith aiming to enter a large clean-washed aven. At the end of this is sharp clean-washed traverse over what seemed like a 30m rift. Reaching the end of this I began bolting a new traverse over a now, much larger, chamber which looked like it was about 20m wide, very long and about 50m deep. Continuing over the top of this in a keyhole rift, we were greeted by a phreatic tube.

To our surprise, this was an lovely stomping passage with some squidgy silt on the floor and a set of small dry waterfalls. This continued for about 100m and ended about a huge chamber where water can be heard from a good instance away. Here the strong inward draught returned, and our hopes were revitalised. Wassil and Merren caught up here and I was strongly encouraged to drop the pitch as Wassil who was incredibly excited. After bolting the Y-hang and dropping our rope (we think about 40-50m) it did not reach the bottom and we headed back to Swiss Cheese with our tails between our legs. Returning to Swiss Cheese we noticed that some traverses were a little vegan for our liking and required a couple more bolts to be deemed reasonable as a route for more people to use. This was a job for tomorrow (or rather later today).

Reaching the underground camp at about 4am, we devoured a collection of noodles and freeze-dried curry before settling down for the night. This night was miserable, little sleep was had and escaping our beds was truly a battle. After some freeze-dried “porridge with strawberries”, which turned taout to be amazing, we trekked back to Lizard Queen, this time exhausted. Merryn waited in Lizard Queen II and Wassil and I made our way to Lizard Queen. Upon reaching the top, Wassil awaited my return, and I ventured down to retrieve all of the pushing equipment from the bottom. I was not happy about this.

Reaching the top of the pitch again, I handed the bolting equipment to Wassil and made my way to Merryn with a large quantity of metalwork and rope. With Wassil only having bolting kit I felt very overburdened and a little hard done by on my journey. Despite this noodle provided a fine remedy upon reaching Swiss Cheese with Merryn.

Wassil later joined us and we all finished off the noodles. This marked the strat oif our arduous escape from the Second Coming and Homecoming in general. Laden with camping kit, most of the metalwork, lots of rope, and the bolting kit I was far slower than normal and at some points found the normally airy traverses thought provoking. Here Wassil left Merryn and I in pursuit of a faster exit with the guise of carrying the “heavy group kit” (this group kit was lighter than Merryn and I’s group kit and mostly consisted of his own shit).

The escape was awful and became briefely less awful upon leaving the bolting kit at the split of Hobnob Hallway, The Second Coming, and Watershed. Here we found a beautiful note left by Becka’s group requesting some bolting supplies to which we left a not by our supplies. In my dehydrated, exhausted mind, I misread a request for a shelter being left at the bottom of Gromit as a request for it to be left at the top. In hindsight this made no sense and was pretty stupid. No shelter for the I guess.

The entrance series proved to be the worst section, despite having left the bolting bag. Additionally, near the end of our exit, the rope I’d carried most of the way-out abandoned ship and was later found by Becka’s group later.

TLDR: Overall, a great trip with over ~294m surveyed and more promising leads found. Couldn’t recommend camping in the second coming more!

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Deciding I wanted to go prospecting but didn’t particularly want to walk back over to garlic cave, so recruited Evelyn, our resident non-caver to go wander around near balcony. Armed with known cave entrances on OSMand plus the cave/plateau overlay developed by Martin, we set off. The path to Balcony is more pleasant than the one to Fish with plenty of cairns meaning we were soon there.

We ambled around on the plateau finding several caves of interest and recording photos and gps points. We generally followed a loop, heading East then North, then West, then South, then East again ending up back near Balcony. Recorded 10 new caves. When heading back to Top camp we detoured through the bunder up to the top of Niederes Augst-Eck, bushwhacking around and eventually making our way back. This did not yield any new caves.

The following caves were found. All entrance details (description and photos) are now on website:

• 2023-ASH-05a 47.69577N 13.82630E 1916m
• 2023-ASH-05b 47.69571N 13.82636E 1916m
• 2023-ASH-06 47.69582N 13.82640E 1916m
• 2023-ASH-07 47.69649N 13.82678E 1926m
• 2023-ASH-08a 47.69671N 13.82719E 1935m
• 2023-ASH-08b 47.69673N 13.82723E 1935m
• 2023-ASH-09 47.69699N 13.82776E 1938m
• 2023-ASH-10 47.69845N 13.82528E 1941m
• 2023-ASH-11 47.69863N 13.82550E 1941m
• 2023-ASH-12 47.69773N 13.82347E 1916m
• 2023-ASH-13 47.69733N 13.82426E 1910m
• 2023-ASH-14 47.69734N 13.82444E 1910m

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Today was a good day, i nerded and drank beer. Why should i cave anymore? Maybe i am a armchair caver after all.

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Joel had discovered an exciting new cave, unfortunately this left us with rope and a lead down in the Fish face – happy butterfly connection which no-one was going to. I was naively convinced to go and look at this lead which needed another y-hang to drop into potential new stuff. Looking at the survey didn’t reveal much information, and none of our group had been here before which wasn’t ideal.

We set off and made our way down the cave, through the rifts until reaching the end of the previous rigging without much difficulty. I rigged the last y-hang and this dropped down to traverse rigged with a mixture of hilti’s and through-bolts above a large hole, with a boulder wedged across the middle. (We later found out this is the ff-hb connection). Ill prepared and confused by the mixture of different paint/survey stations and assortment of rigging options, we decided to traverse up into some side passages and explore round. Half this had been surveyed, but it was unclear what hadn’t so we re-surveyed a large loop – kreshconnectionconfusion. It turned out half of this hadn’t been surveyed so was somewhat worthwhile on an otherwise pointless trip.

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Blog Author: Harry Kettle

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Excited to go and see (and kill) this new cave, two groups set off to push the two ‘A’ leads at the extent of Tempest. Arriving at the cave we prepared the bags and realised we’d forgotten a hammer, so I went over to Fishface to fetch one that would hopefully still be there, allowing the other team some time to get down the cave.

We all convened at the bottom of the entrance series, after descending on rope down the two snowy slopes. The final pitch was narrow and loose, dropping shortly down into a passage heading both left and right. After some discussions Joel/Lizzie’s team decided to head right down an icy slope to what would be another pitch. Zac and I headed left.

Job done we headed back to the junction where we met up with the others. Despite being gone probably hour they were still yet to do anything? Snacks were eaten in a bothy and then Zac and I headed out where we met Merryn and Ely on the surface, who had walked up the plateau.

Merryn joined Zac and I to scope out a couple of side passages just as you start going down Tempest. One of these a snow slope heads off into a side rift which can be squeezed up through boulders, but then loops back around to the same (Tempest) pitch at a higher level. Surveyed as Fartichoke. The other was a very short arch in the ceiling joining immediately back in, and not going anywhere further, as this was just the ceiling of the main passage below.

It had rained whilst we were in the cave and Ely had conveniently covered over most of our stuff which we’d left lying around. Once out we packed up and headed back to Top Camp.

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Blog Author: Mealy

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jono and i had spotted an A lead bolt climb off the edge of propane nightmares over the death sump. armed with bolts and mikes drill we set off from garlic cave and after much faff we finally enteretd into homecoming. we got our kit into two bags of very heavy nature and set off down the cave. the entrance pitches went easily and eventually we got to the traverse . this was a interesting with large blokes and large bags stuck in the rift. after a large amount of swearing we got down to wallace. this went easily, and we got onto grommit. this was rather "fun" as the rope was looking interesting, and you had to go very slowly to avoid sizzling. at the bottom of grommit we gathered some bolts and hangers from the bag down there and set off into propane nightmares.

we stopped to document and tape a bat skeleton and some spelotherms . care required when going through this section of cave. we then kept going and arrived at the death sump. i bolted a traverse over the sump which was good fun. blowing the dust out of the holes showed a nice draft blowing from the lead into us. we kep going after this and arrived at the base of the bolt climb. jono climbed this with various thrutchy moves and an inverted skyhook. and placed a bolt at the start of the awkward uphill tube. this up pitch was named the heifer. jono then bolteda traverse at the top into a nice phreatic passage which led down a nice pitch. we dropped down this with the final bolt and found another static sump at the bottom in a nice quiet chamber, called the trough. it went but we decided that we needed to get more bolts to upgrade the rigging on the heifer. we collected some more from the bottom of grommit and then headed back to the heifer.

on arriving back to the heifer we climbed baack up and realized that thye rigging needed some drastic changes. we bolts a better alternative route with a nicer hang. then we started surveying up the pitch. on the down pitch i installed a deviation. once at the bottom of the pitch i could hear a large sound of flowing water. at this point jono felt large gusts of air at the top of the pitch. we traversed over the sump at the bottom and installed a traverse line at the end for a bold step (needs replacing next trip, 3 meters of rope required). once across we found a small stream running towards our sump. we kept surveying and eventually the water kept rising and we got to a low arch that was impassable with the water levels but a large 12ft high contiuation could be seen beyond survey point 9. a bolt climb into a higher rift could be seen to right opposite survey point 8. we also found two unstratified long bones from a small mammal. these were sampled. we then thoughbt it would be a good idea to turn around as it was getting rather late and the water was rising still. we crossed back over the sump and jono scanned the cave.

we regrouped at the base of the heifer after adding a bolt to make the pitch head easier and started the long trudge out. the route to watershed sounded apocolypticly wet as we passed by. i arrived at the base of grommit and the drums of khazard-dum started to sound. the water coming down beyond the pitch was carrying some loud rocks with it which was a fun accomaniment for the prussic. the pitches stayed nice and dry and eventually i got to the cheese press. my bag and i had a falling out and many expletives and death threats were made on the horizontal traverse i had to tighten a few of the spit bolts (entertaining due to large bag and being horizontal). finally we made it back to the rock at the end of the traverses. i stopped and had a flapjack here and waited for jono. i heard his displeasure at the cave appear and we shared a bag of happy bears which boosted the mood. radagst was rather dripping but we eventually made it back onto the surface at 3AM. we arrived back at garlic cave and ate some grim noodles and went to sleep. good trip well do

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Took Zac to bolt a cave he had previously found not too far of the path to Fishface. Slight delay as we’d forgotten something important (bolts maybe?), which Will went back to get.

One bolt wonder dropped over a tackle-sack rope protector 5m to a snow slope. Cave then crapped out. Zac named it Boring hole (2023-ASH-16). Surveyd and then de-rigged.

Found another cave just over an escarpment, a large rift in the ground. Excellent opportunity for Will to learn/practice bolting so he set to gardening, before installing a y-hang. At the bottom of the rift the were no continuations. Will named it Dead on Arrival (2023-ASH-15). Surveyed and then de-rigged.

Headed back to Top camp for noodles.

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Deciding we weren’t done for the day yet an afternoon evening trip was decided upon to survey some of the caves Evelyn and I had found a few days ago. Will and I gathered the necessary gear and set off towards Balcony.

Upon trying to re-find the triangular rock arch from a cave before, I led us slightly too far to the south to find another arch -this was only a metre long so not a cave. However we then found a new cave. 20 or so metres of horizontal development with a crawl also linking in the side. We explored and surveyed this cave (2023-ASH-17) which Will named Gollum Grotto.

We then found the triangular arch I had been looking for originally. Surveyed this short cave (2023-ASH-07) and named it Little Tent. The cave is very short with the addition of a climb down through boulders, but this doesn’t go anywhere.

With the threat of thunderstorms, we headed back, making it back in time to then watch some lightning off on the edges of the plateau. Plus curry for dinner.

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Today was a diffrent day. I walked down the Plat and was supose to enter all my 3D data and Nerd but i drank more beer instead.

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Decided to go and survey/kill a couple more caves before heading down off the plateau for the year. Aware that I would have a lot of data to sort out and vague plans to go canyoning Friday before the dinner, this needed to be an efficient trip. Las as is always the case with caving we didn’t get down to the car park until around 5pm.

The caves we surveyed near Balcony, Evelyn and I had previously found a couple days ago, 2023-ASH-08 and 2023-ASH-09 now correspondingly named Top Camp Band and Bat versus Rat by Tom. They are both quite short with horizontal routes in. Top Camp Band was the more extensive of the two, with a second entrance consisting of a tight 10m high aven down to the main chamber, which a crawl leads back to the first entrance. Good opportunity for Tom to have more practice on book (paperless).

It was then back to top camp to pack up everything to then walk down.

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Blog Author: Samouse1

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Nowt, apparently. Again. On a Sunday, again.

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We had a lot of fun... Ah yes. Mr Bernard knows his stuff. Planting more trees when you have the chance is generally a good thing, especially if you just freed up loads of land due to cutting down on the excessive production of high-carbon cows and sheep. But they do have to be the right sorts in the right places, with a plan to look after them for at least a decade othwise most will die and you just wasted a lot of time/effort/money. But it's no substitue for actual emissions reductions.

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Tourist trip down Fishface to Pisspot. Already more SRT than Joe has done in his entire lifetime combined, hopefully not holding up Kai too much.

Turned around and headed back out after 2 hours or so as felt we had done enough SRT practice

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Following the trip down fishface, Kai and Joe instructed to survey a tight lead from the surface, at GPS location 47.6916192, 13.8128410, to the right of the bottom of a snowy chossy slope.

Cave starts with a short, loose downwards slope, continuing on for about a metre before being ending, filled with frost-shatter. To the left, a short, again loose, upwards slope leads to a vertically upwards shaft of about 4 or 5 metres in height, and around 1.5m in diameter. The lower 3m or so of the shaft was easily free-climbable, but potentially loose rocks made climbing the rest of the shaft difficult. However, from the highest point reached, it looks to be very narrow carrying on, so was considered dead.

Upon leaving this lead, Kai looked to the left of this lead to find another tight lead, floored with frost shattered, starting with hand and knee crawling, but progressing to belly crawling. A small branch off to the right, looking quite tight, was found, followed by a standing chamber filled with soil, again to the right, before daylight was seen ahead, up a muddy slope. Upon some minor digging by Kai, he was able to reach daylight, finding himself at the bottom of a snow filled hole unable to reach the surface. Joe was not entirely excited at the idea of returning through the belly crawling on sharp frost shatter but had to.

This second lead to the left was not surveyed nor fully explored and needs returning to.

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Hearing of an exciting new lead, "Mahlstromhöhle", from Frank, Max and Flo, Frank and I embarked on a walk westward out of Fishface gear dump. Upon finding the entrance (which took considerably longer than anticipated) we quickly started kitting up, only to find an absence of any drill bits in the drill bag, contrary to what Frank believed to be the case. Frank then left for fishface gear dump in search of drill bits, whilst I waited patiently, in kit.

After maybe 45 minutes, Frank returned, unable to find fishface, pointing that he had in fact walked in the wrong direction. Upon directing him in the right direction, he again disappeared for around 45 minutes, returning with no drill bits. Giving up, we headed back to fishface to dump our gear, and started the walk back to topcamp.

At some point during our travels, Frank had decided we should attempt to pioneer a new, shorter, easier path between topcamp and fishface, leaving the path halfway to embark on this endeavour. After much time scrambling, bunder-bashing and pathfinding, we finally refound the path, having created a path that was not easier, nor shorter. Frank then got bored and created a new gear rack at topcamp whilst we waited for the garlic cave prospecting group to arrive.

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After the brilliant success of yesterday's failed pushing trip, Frank and I returned to Mahlstromhöhle to actually go underground and push. After the entrance pitch, there is a small hole in the floor, from which several small-ish pitches follow.

The cave begins to follow a canyon, starting with a lovely tight climb up to a ledge at the pitch head, with some other equally fun freeclimbs on which we decided to bolt a handline on the way back.

The canyon appears to have several false floors which we followed, resulting in several very small pitches which would certainly be a freeclimb if there were actually any holds. Bolting and surveying on the way, we kept pushing until we ran out of bolts and found a squeeze followed by a big wet pitch. We turned around and quickly exited the cave, with much SRT faff from me at the small canyon pitchheads and unusually rigged pitches by the German pair.

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Hearing of our great success with this shallow lead, Nadia, having returned from a fishface camping trip the day before, decided she would join us for a nice easy surface trip.

Heading back to the pushing front, we decided that the previous handline climb should in fact be a pitch with a horizontal crawling entry above a rift as this was easier and safer.

Upon reaching the pushing front, the first fun activity was to negotiate the squeeze before pitchhead. Frank managed this with little difficulty and began bolting. Nadia went over and we began surveying from our last station. Finally I went through, finding the squeeze somewhat uncomfortable and we continued surveying through the big wet pitch, getting to a large chamber with two leads off to the left and right which quickly becamce too small for humans, and the main canyon continuing as before, with a nice wet but very sharp rift traverse leading to another somewhat small pitchhead leading to a big, wet chamber.

At this point we decided to turn around, concerned by the forecast. On the way, I struggled with the squeeze (I must have done it wrong) and several pitches, realising that drill bags are heavy and annoying to carry.

We surfaced, headed back to topcamp, and arrived just before the thunderstorms did. We waited for it to mostly clear, then headed back to the carpark.

On the drive back, Nadia claimed we "undersold" everything between the pitches, and described Mahlstrom as a "Yorkshire blackbook" cave

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Nowt, apparently. Again. On a Sunday, again.

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Blog Author: Sarah P

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After a leisurely (not quite for Ruairidh, carrying far too much) walk up to topcamp with Frank and Nadia following a leisurely morning start from me, Ruairidh and I decided that we could attempt to find an easier, quicker entrance to Maelstrom by following the rift from the surface whilst the other two and Sam were actually in the cave derigging. First we found a large basin, containing what appeared to be a large cave entrance, but upon further inspection, choked out towards the back of the cave. Ruairidh did find a nice complete Gaemse skull though, which he seemed quite happy about. Another potential entrance found further along the rift with a steady flow of water disappearing into the ground which could explain some of the bigger drippy pitches after the lovely squeeze. The rift splits into two further on, with some promising, but inaccessible, looking gorges on the right fork as you follow it. The left seemed less promising from memory but this area is definitely worth another look with bolting kit to make sure. Realising we'd actually got quite close to the col, we decided to simply hike towards the slabs and rejoin the carpark-topcamp path and head back.

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[Adam E = Adam Erskine-Jones]

On the morning of my first pushing trip deep within Fishgesicht (5 minutes from camp) the nervous energy carried me up and away through the bountiful faff. After triple checking that we had all the equipment for bolting and surveying a rift that apparently continued but was too sketchy without a traverse line, Charlie, Adam EJ and I traipsed across the plateau for even more faff outside the entrance. After a prompt descent we met the camping team who showed us the way to silverback scoop including a stop at the tap and going down a wrong branch. Squeezing through a pitch head to descend 7m into a dusty tight canyon with a tackle sack full of heavy gear, I did wonder what I was doing, but once the drill was out that fell away completely.

6 bolts and a bomber handline later, I was round the corner into a section of cave previously untrodden. Whilst bolting is fun and productive, it takes a hell of a long time with a dull bit, so I was happy when the rift narrowed back up to allow clambering and bridging around the many meanders that presented themselves over the next 15 metres of canyon. During this time, the gardening process was intense, knocking off several flakes larger than dinner plates from the walls around me as I proceeded. Rounding the corner to another belled out section was both a joy and a disappointment as it meant that this had potential but also the decision-making regarding rope and how to descend would mean standing around and feeling cold. Charlie led the charge down and further along the canyon, trusting mine and EJ’s amateur one bolt wonder to squeeze into the next section of canyon, assessing what to do with our meagre supply of rope. All of this took us to 7pm and after terminating an almost entirely horizontal pitch, we decided to take our final leg and prussik out, hoping to make it out before August began.

The prussiking that then was meant to happen was further delayed on meeting the campers once again for a chit chat. After far too long wondering whether the next pitch was the last, we finally emerged into the warm clear night, comfortably into august. Charlie and I lay contemplating existence, and why the hell we bother caving but feeling very accomplished. All that was left to do after the trip was draw up the survey, continue the lead, input to survex, and write a logbook entry with rigging topo. All of that is now complete, see the topo below.

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Woke up to see a sub-optimal forecast. Somehow I was convinced that hiking to Garlic Cave Camp was of course the best course of action to take, so we set off. It was actually dry for the first third or so to fishface gear dump to collect our caving gear, but this did not last. The path is a little treacherous in the wet, so it was a little slow going and slightly miserable and wet but we made it. Adam started shovelling snow, Nathan joined in, then I did. I believe Adam had some grand design in mind but I think we ruined it. We then decided to rig a third tarp up to stop the horrible drip right next to the kitchen, but we rigged a drippy tarp and so the situation wasn't drastically improved. We all went to sleep pretty early without anything else to do.

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After our lovely sleep, we woke up to dry weather, and set off to the top of the ridge above Garlic. Carrying the thick, wet 90m up the mountain was not conducive to good balance so I did fall over in the bunde and struggle to get back up. We reached Buzzard, Adam rigged it, first to the bunde, then hand bolting whilst we waited patiently. The improvement in weather did give a lovely backdrop of the Braeuningzinken for photos. Nathan went down next, followed by Manfred whilst I stayed outside enjoying the view. Upon Adam's return, I swiftly fell asleep, and awoke to find Nathan and Manfred had finished their survey and were finalising some sketches. Adam spotted some interesting holes beneath us on the plateau, so wet set off to prospect (see next entry).

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After dropping Buzzard, the fours of us decided to drop down the north face of the ridge, heading east at first, then split to form two prospecting groups, Adam and I heading further east to wrap around to the south face of the ridge, and Nathan and Manfred following the north face westwards to prospect the large, unknown valley beneath us.

We spotted an interesting looking hut halfway up the side of the next peak eastwards (Griesskogel) which we went to look at first. It seems to be some kind of hunters hut; it looks quite new and very well set up, with solar panels, a level, felt platform and even an outhouse. Borrowing the hut to sleep in could be really useful for prospecting in the area but it looks so nice I'm not sure we should really be staying there. There are plenty of promising leads we were unable to drop in this area north of the line between Wild- and Griesskogel so this really could be very useful.

We headed back towards Garlic, having a look at some of the holes we spotted from the ridgetop and some others, finding some promising looking leads that seem to follow a rift along the base of Wildkogel, then back to Garlic camp so as to not miss our callout.

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Tuesday was another wet day so a day of top camp fettling was had whilst plans were made for a fish face camp the following day. We had a (fairly) efficient morning, departing top camp shortly after 10 having received a debrief from the previous camp group, who had returned in the early hours, on the state of the latest leads.

Having been promised a dry day after the downpour of the previous day, Nadia and I were greatly unimpressed when it started raining as we kitted up at the fish face entrance. With several grumblings about the weather we got underground and had an uneventful and efficient descent to camp. We dropped off our camp things and enjoyed the luxury of an underground noodle lunch before heading off for leads beyond the traverse above clap my pitch up. Nadia and Kai had previously found a descent length of phreas beyond the traverse, named Theophlius boon, which we were hoping to continue.

At the pushing front, there was a walking height passage we could have started with but at Nadia’s reluctance I decided we should start with the crawling C lead to ‘close it out’, assuming it wouldn’t go very far. 40m later, after some rather awkward surveying, we had decided we had had enough despite the small passage continuing, and left it as a C lead, concluding that even if it did go somewhere no one would be willing to drag tackle sacks down it.

Returning to the much more sensible A lead, we prepared ourselves for our ‘proper’ surveying of the day assuming the walking phreatic passage would continue… we managed one survey leg and around the corner found a deep rift crossing our passage at a junction. After some deliberation it was decided the rift was free climbable and we continued left up the rift to a 3m free climb above which the passage ended. We retraced our steps to the junction and contemplated a climb over the opposite side of the rift. As all our other leads had dried up we decided this climb was manageable and I headed up to see if it went anywhere. There was another junction at the top, with the right hand branch quickly narrowing into what would be a very flat out crawl... not convinced a person would actually fit down. To the left was a crawling passage above the rift below which after 5m turned away from the rift and continued in a flat out muddy crawl. For some reason Nadia could not quite understand, I decided this muddy crawl went and proceeded to slither through in the interests of seeing whether there was anything beyond. After 10m it opened up into walking height phreas so I returned to Nadia, plastered in mud, to inform her of the good news.

Surprisingly Nadia was not keen to join me in the mud frollicking before our return to camp so we surveyed up to the muddy crawl and decided to return the next day to tackle the mud. On our way back to camp we closed out another previous c lead earlier in theophilus boon, which crapped out after 4 legs. We had a very pleasant evening at camp with Frank and Ruairidh, who had been exploring leads in another part of the cave.

None of us set an alarm so a late start was had the next morning and Nadia and I didnt leave camp till 12. We returned with reluctance to the mud fest and braced ourselves for the crawl. We took a rope and put a handline on the climb up out of the rift that we had done the day before (we removed this handline on our way out later). The passage was quite pleasant beyond but we were so plastered in mud by this point it was a challenge to keep survey notes clean. The passage continued approx 100m in walking height phreatic passage, with a rift in the floor joining in at intervals along the passage. We passed a junction with a small passage in the ceiling following the direction of the passage below. Further down we found a second similar junction and suspected that these two C leads connected in a subsection of the main passage; it looked small and unappealing enough that we decided not to confirm our suspicion. The main passage gradually became more rifty and ended once it became too small to pass. Along the passage we found 6 interesting helictites, the most impressive one measuring approx 40cm long with a diameter of 5-10cm (there was some debate between Nadia and I on this).

We returned to the traverse above clap my pitch up and due to some misunderstanding believed that all the other leads beyond this point had crapped out so Nadia derigged the traverse. This was a bold move requiring a pull through to derig the last section… shame it transpired to be not as helpful as we had thought. We had a frustratingly slow ascent of the red line pitches as our jammers were more mud than jammer by this point so once back at the tap we had an srt kit cleaning session before making our way out. Nadia found the rope near the bottom of tk maxx was core shot and tied this out. Our way out was otherwise uneventful, getting back to top camp for about 1:30.

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Woke up. 10am. It was rainy :(

Nathan ran off to homecoming to try and catch Becca and Botch before they went underground - Adam Aldridge ran after him to take him to the pushing front if they had already gone, apparently they were still there, so Adam left to go prospecting somewhere in the intermittent rain.

Camp fettling was suggested to me before they left - I changed out the old drippy tarp for a slightly bigger, and importantly, waterproof tarp. After this I started drystoning an extension to the kitchen platform. Had fun digging out part of Garlic for materials. Dropped a large rock on my finger which hurt. This did slow progress but I finished the intended extension, hopefully it holds until next expo. Adam returned, quite wet. Nathan did also later. I took some photos and made some shoddy diagrams of the tarps. Good day of fettling.

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Following a swift departure from Garlic in the morning, and an even swifter (and sweaty) hike across the plateau carrying the thick 90m rope with all my other kit, I partially completed the garlic camp guide. Only the badly taken photos and badly drawn diagrams to add. I think I'll redraw the diagram before I add it to the website as I can't face the embarassment of such a poor product. My head hurt afterwards but I'm glad I got all the typing out the way. Hannah convinced me to try a Goesser. Not bad as far as beer goes, but not sure I'm quite converted yet. I think this will change with continued expo attendance in future years, should this be the case.

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Blog Author: PhilipSargent
Survey writeups continue, today we passed 4km of surveyed passage this expo (we don't count splays).
The website currently on shows 3,233.2 m expo.survex.com/wallets/year/2023 but the new data update later this evening will show over 4km.

My first underground camp


Everyone was chased down the hill by a forecast predicting a lot of rain and a temperature of: feels like -2 on the plateau. (Everyone except a few young new arrivals and one crazy returnee to show them the way. They headed up during peak storm to get soaking wet before experiencing one of the coldest nights as their first night. Youth…) After a night at basecamp everyone was keen to make the most of the sunny day forecasted for the day afterwards and we wanted to head up to top camp to pack and have an early start for an underground camp trip.

Arriving at top camp we realised that we had misjudged the weather. We all shivered, too cold to think about packing for our underground camp. Overnight everyone shivered in their sleeping bags as the wind whistled by. Waking up in the morning I saw the sun outside which motivated me to leave my less than warm sleeping bag. Unfortunately the sun was sporadic and it wasn't actually warm outside. We begrudgingly packed for our underground camp while wishing we could bask in warm sunlight.

Having never been down to the camp before I was intimidated by the depth as I struggled with my two tackle sacks, one normal sized and a massive but light one with our underground camp sleeping bags. My intimidation was needless because it turns out going up with only one bag is easier than going down with two.

After finally arriving at camp Botch and I headed over to a lead called gerbil hole, due to the small and apparently very tight squeeze that leads you into a reasonably sized rift passage. Botch had been their previously with Becka and Luke. Luke had been so terrified of returning through gerbil hole that he carried on through the exposed rift to find an alternative exit. Luckily for him he found a hole to pop out of in a previously explored connecting passage. The route he took looked too sketchy for Becka and Botch to follow so they returned through gerbil hole.

Botch and I's mission for the day was to bolt down what Luke has previously free climbed and then head on to the leads down the other side of the rift. Unfortunately, this proved more difficult than expected because Botch didn't know what level Luke had been in the rift or how far along we would have to go. We eventually made it to the connection but not before running out of rope making the continuing leads inaccessible. We surveyed the passage that we had come down and headed back to camp a bit disappointed and a bit early for a cold night at camp.

Curry and gnocchi for dinner cheered us up as we waited for Kai and Rob to return from their trip. They brought great news of a new traverse into a phreatic window with a few unexplored junctions. After dinner we settled into another cold night made better by the memory of an even colder night before. At least it wasn't as bad as the night before.

Waking up had me worried because even with all my layers and a thick sleeping bag I wasn't warm. But coffee coaxed me out of bed and the movement and hot food warmed me up. We all headed off to the traverse they had found the day before. Rob's plan was to rig the pitches below the traverse (clap my pitch up) while the rest of us explored the horizontal leads. Rob went down first and said he was out of the way and we could carry on the traverse. This turned out to be false. He was directly below and the mud was thick and clumpy, and try and we might, we could not prevent it falling from our boots. Rob, increasingly annoyed by the mud whistling past his head, eventually decided to seek cover. We later found out that he managed to find new phreatic passage in his search for shelter.

Eventually making it to the window, we got our survey equipment out and decided to head down the least promising lead of a small phreatic tube. About half a metre wide. We figured we would quickly tick off this lead and save the best for last. After about 4 legs we found an excellent bat skeleton and another junction! We carried on 'straight' to a walking height rift with small flowstones and crystals in the ceiling. We also found a 30cm stalactite that had small crystal hairs. A photo was taken but the camera is at top camp so I have no photo to share.

After about 20 legs Rob had finished his rigging and came and collected Botch to survey the new passage he found while hiding from our traverse. Kai and I carried on a little longer until we got to another junction and decided to end our day at this promising location. We later uploaded the data and learned we had discovered 125m of new cave that trip! We headed back to camp, packed up and started our long prussik out. We returned to top camp at midnight pretty tired and glad it wasn't too cold finally.

(In a subsequent underground camp trip I returned to the same area but Hannah will be telling you about that adventure. I brought my down jacket to underground camp and found that to be a game changer. Not only was I warm at night, somehow that heat carried on to my caving trips. It was amazing)

Fishface Camp - Muddy Goons

I’d arrived at expo in the early hours of Monday morning having done a straight drive from the UK with Nathan. I made it up to top camp Monday evening after catching up on some sleep, excited to get underground. Unfortunately the weather was very (very) wet on the Tuesday, continuing the theme of this years expo it seems, so a day of top camp fettling was had and plans made with Nadia for a fish face camp the following day.


Nadia very happy with a tacklesack!

Considering we had a whole day to pack for our camping trip we thought we could depart the next morning in good time, but alas the faff gets us all. After a debrief of the current leads with the previous camping team, who had returned in the early hours, we set off from top camp shortly after 10:00. We had an uneventful walk across the plateau and descent to camp. I’d heard great things of the legendary fish face camp… kitchen sides… taps… and mud free passages. And I hate to admit it, after my stubborn commitment to Balcony’s muddy depths last year, but it’s actually quite nice. We dropped off our camp kit and enjoyed a noodle lunch before heading off to the pushing front.


Nadia enjoying underground camp cooking.

The report on the state of leads from the previous camp group was not overwhelmingly positive, with some promising leads having been abandoned due to wetness. However a lead that Nadia had found on a previous camping trip (described above) was still left for the taking; named Theophilus Goon. We headed across the traverse above clap my pitch up and off to the junction at the pushing front. We had a choice between walking height passage ahead or a small tube which would make for awkward surveying, so when given the choice by Nadia I naturally chose the small tube. The logic was that we would quickly close out this lead before getting onto the good stuff, but after 40m the switch backing crawl was persisting on so we abandoned it as a C lead and returned to the junction. With falsely high hopes for our walking height passage we set off again, managing one survey leg before turning a corner and finding the passage intercepted by a rift. After a short climb down we set off along the reasonably sized rift, still feeling hopeful, only to find it ended after several legs. We retraced our steps and contemplated a climb up that we had previously been unconvinced by, but now out of options was looking more appealing. Nadia waited below while I headed up to see if it actually went anywhere. At the top I found a crawling height passage that ended in a flat out muddy crawl. Shouting down that I wasn’t sure if the passage went, Nadia said to go ‘a bit further’ to check before she followed me up the climb… I misinterpreted this statement and disappeared off through the mud about 20m to find a walking height phreatic passage beyond. I returned to Nadia to tell her the good news… that she considered less good looking at the state of me plastered in mud. Understandably Nadia was not keen to get covered in mud before returning to camp, so we surveyed up until the crawl and agreed to return the next day.


Ruairidh and I trying to stay warm at underground camp.

A pleasant evening was had in camp with Ruairidh and Frank, who had been exploring leads beyond coconut shy. We returned the next day with some lacking enthusiasm for the mud which was in my opinion worse than Balcony, which is really saying something! The crawl was only 10m long but once covered in mud it was challenging to keep survey notes and disto clean. Nadia later commented that most people would probably have considered this crawl as ‘not going’ but I think my over enthusiasm got the better of me, it was my first trip of the expedition after all. Despite the unpleasant start to the passage, the rest was very pleasant with some interesting helictites found. The most impressive of which came horizontally out the wall approx 40cm, with a diameter of 5-8cm (much debate was had on these dimensions) and three crystallised bulbs along it… unfortunately we had both forgotten a camera and so no one else is able to appreciate these sights but we have made sure to tell lots of people about it! After 100m the rift passage became impassable, and with only two unpromising leads we suspected connected up in a subsection of the main passage, we turned around. Nadia aptly named our finds for the day Muddy Goons.


A sketch of the interesting helictite (almost as good as a picture...)

The pitches back to camp were painful, despite their shortness, due to our mud caked jammers. We reached the ‘tap’ near camp with relief and had a good gear cleaning session before making our way out. We were greeted on the surface with the impressive sight of an almost full moon, bright and low on the horizon, which lit the first part of the walk back before slipping below the mountain peaks - I have definitely missed life on the plateau since last year!

Connecting FF to SMK - a step further
Two weeks really isn't long enough to spend on a caving expedition. You really have no chance to think, it's all just go. Well, that was certainly Stangroom's approach to driving anyway, reaching giddying speeds on the Autobahn as we pressed on towards Bad Aussee. We had chosen a poor weekend to depart, the first of the school holidays, and so despite arriving in Dover two hours early we had to settle for a ferry two hours later than planned, which also stank of fish, in a bad way. One absolutely mad woman chose to embrace the stench and tucked into fish and chips at 2:30 am! This experience caused us to want to move away from Dunkirk at great speed, with only a brief stop en route in the Frankenjura to go for a swim in a very fast flowing river.

So it was that on Saturday evening we found ourselves alongside the river Traun and rolling into the usual gravelly expanse opposite Gasthof Staud'n'wirt which is almost a home from home for me in Austria now. Chips on the go in the Bier tent, Wiessbier in the fridge - always nice to return. Though the real home from home is on the sea of late Triassic limestone 1000 m higher, among which hide many alpine plants (about which I learnt a lot this year from Botch) and below which hopefully we would be able to connect Fish Face to the main SMK system via a nasty bit of passage called Razordance. This would not only increase the length of the system by around 7 km, but would also provide much easier access to some tantalising leads which had been left in the Silk Road, just above Razordance, 15 years before. However, this year the weather had other ideas...

Straight up the hill the next day, and after a couple of days fixing rigging in both FF and Homecoming it began pissing down again so we headed down to make a plan in the relative comfort of the potato hut. Nadia and I decided we would camp with Botch and Kai, it being the first underground camp for both of them. I won't repeat the story of the freezing cold and forgotten utensils, though the shuffle across the 'Delicate Steve' traverse was a highlight of the expedition (even if it was derigged prematurely due to miscommunication from Luke and Becka about the quality of the leads left on the branch that Nadia and Hannah didn't visit). Less ideal was the discovery that Kai was much more dyslexic than I had thought, to the point that when we returned from the camping trip and were typing in the data it transpired he had got '7' and '0' the wrong way around on clino readings multiple times. Either way, between us Luke (caving on the bounce) and I rigged Clap My Pitch Up and Apis Medicus, though I had to fix a lot of my slap-dash rigging from last year (I blame Makita 14 V drills and modified cells - I bought a new Bosch ahead of this trip, best decision of the year alongside quitting that PhD).


Me (re)surveying beyond Delicate Steve. Why are so many cavers dyslexic?

After another night at base camp sitting out some rain, we returned the next evening and departed for camp that night to beat the faff, arriving just after midnight. Tomorrow was the only definite good weather day before I returned to the UK, so if we were to make the connection it had to be then. A team of five this time: myself, Luke, Becka, Botch and first-time (very) happy camper Lea, who was hoping to go further than her previous deepest point in FF, reached at the 'flaque verte' or 'green puddle' which was the anticlimatic end to Perseid Showers. Next morning we tried hard to stay in bed, but at around 10:30 Luke, Lea and I were on our way towards the pushing front, Botch and Becka going to look at another wet lead left last year, Keanu Breeze, which seemed to be heading towards Homecoming (see Harry's post - sadly it was too wet for them to make any progress, so they surveyed in northern FF instead). Although no rain was forecast for the day, it was significantly wetter in the stream passage which followed the big pitches than it had been during last years drought, so my hopes weren't particularly high for the connection. After a bit of sniffing around in the rift after the final pitch we dropped last year, we noticed it was much larger passage a bit higher up, though much muddier. I crept along the sticky mess above the yawning slit below to reach a large pitch, and decided we should stick a rope in, so retreated and began bolting across while Luke headed back to the pitch for the extra rope we had left there.

A morning at Camp Kresh. First, wake up, though preferably after Becka has already been awkwardly prowling around for 40 minutes waiting for you to pay heed to your alarm. Take some more time in bed to admire your camp crocs, if you have them (well done Luke and Me), then eventually spring into action on the coffee (we only accept freshly ground at this camp). Once you have fulfilled your caffeine needs, tend to your other needs and pack them away carefully in the Jape drum. Luke was very proud of how small his was.

Soon I was dangling above a drop into a very noisy, wet chamber formed along a big fault. Partway down, I decided that I needed to put in a rebelay to bring the rope out of the spray behind us, so climbed out left some distance and flicked my skyhook over a small knob of rock. While I was hammering to find good rock for the next bolt this popped off and sent me swinging at speed about 15 m across the shaft. Without thinking, I decided to use my hand to stop the swing, which really hurt. Skyhook held next time though and the bolt went in to land us on a large ledge with many enormous car-sized boulders upon it. The streamway slunk off out of sight in a small canyon formed in bedrock below the bouldery matrix.

A cautious inspection of the very mobile and friable surroundings in which we found ourselves revealed that there was basically no solid floor to stand on. We considered beginning to bolt around the side of the shaft, but decided that we could spend days doing that (it seemed to have no end, and we only had the one day), so I decided to embrace the misery and follow the water beneath the huge mound of choss we had been standing on just before. I hammered the flaky rock gingerly: the knowledge of the size and precariousness of the boulders above, combined with the constant noise of the stream, was quite disquieting. I could almost feel the rocks pressing down upon me and the water rising up my spine. On beginning to abseil down the drop, it became clear that there was no way of avoiding the water entering from an inlet on my left, though I put in a pathetic deviation anyway to stop myself from landing in the pool at the bottom. Ever since I first caved in the Alps, the dangers of water and associated hypothermia had been repeatedly drilled into me, as had the dangers of loose rock. For good reason. At the bottom of the pitch my 'exploration fever' ebbed away and I realised I was cold and wet, could barely use my right hand now after the skyhook smash incident, and was far from home. Another 5 m drop headed down to a calmer looking streamway below, willing me on towards Razordance. We had to be close! But I had already decided that we had come far enough and that I couldn't risk dampening (literally) Lea's psyche and potentially getting everyone, rather than just me, into a shivering mess. So I derigged and left the lead for a year where it doesn't rain as much.

Luke already had the Jetboil on for me like the sweetie he is, so I was soon treated to some noodles eaten with a pencil, luxury! We then started the tedious process of pulling all the gear out. We filled a bag with rope, maillons and hangers, then I took that and the drill back to camp while Luke and Lea began to PAELLA the rope out from the bottom of Apis Medicus. We returned to finish the job the next day after a small bit of exploration beyond Delicate Steve, and headed out to arrive at the surface at around 11:30pm. My hand appeared to just be badly bruised, so that was a bonus. I would need it when derigging some particularly interesting rigging in Homecoming the next day, but that's a story for another time...


New passage 'Dentelle de Caca' in FF. Lea was fuckin psyched about the lacy textures on the cave walls. Possibly because she was dressed like she was working at a festival and was channelling the energy that comes when you're doing the litterpick at the end, pocketing all the bags of treasure the rich punters have left... Finding big caves is better though.

And that was it for my exploration in FF. Lea continued the trend of french names for our new passage with 'Dentelle de Caca', named as the walls of the passage had thin lattices of calcite which looked like lace, covered in a veneer of shitty mud. 8 m vertically and 50 m horizontally to make that connection now. Luke and I have almost definitely decided we won't be back next year, but we'd like to connect the caves before we're 30, so it all hinges on 2025...

All photos: Stangroom.

The Tempest Diaries*


Tempest survey. (Credits: Ash Gregg/Lizzie Caisley)

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a new cave for Expo! Admittedly one that only kept us occupied for a grand total of five days, but an interesting development nonetheless. Before crapping out, this felt like a very promising cave – a large initial entrance pitch sheltered by the peak of a small hill, with promising leads both to the left and right of the base unobscured by fallen rock. Given that much of the caving this year has revolved around deeper leads, it was helpful to have a shallower project for less-experienced/lazier cavers to take the pressure off those leading deeper trips. It was a significant point of pride for me that this project was almost conducted in a large part by first-time Expo-goers – evidence, if it is needed, that inexperience does not equal incompetence. The bolting, rigging, surveying and pushing all felt like a showcase of what those involved had learnt in the past three weeks.


The entrance to Tempest. Note the rather sharp deviation (definitely not rigged off a bit of baler twine Ely found in his bag), which was fortunately later adjusted.

Situated around 100 metres south of the entrance to Fishgesichthöhle, in a depression at the centre of a tiered limestone knoll, Tempest was discovered by myself, Emily, Lizzie, Tom and Merryn at the end of a delirious day of prospecting under the hot hot Styrian sun. Stumbling blindly into a dense patch of bunde, we discovered an impressive-looking crack in the side of the rockface in a patch of lush vegetation reminiscent of the Lost World. Mabbett began bolting a traverse but we were chased off by impending weather, and were discouraged from continuing by a multiple-day stint festering at base camp.


Initial bolting of the entrance to Tempest. Everyone looking very serious. Lizzie “helped”.

Returning to our efforts on Monday, a small team comprising myself, Lizzie, Tom and Ely completed the traverse but were halted in further efforts by Tom exploding the drill. Successive efforts pushed the more promising lead down a 45° slope of scree and snow which reached a choke that again continued in two directions, a short downwards pitch and a chossy ledge to the left. The team installed a short traverse and dropped on a single bolt into a chamber which became known as Narnia due to the sizeable frozen waterfalls and other ice formations dotted around.


Big Tom and myself in Narnia. Chossy death to the left, and sexy ice formations to the right. (Photo credits: Lizzie)

The following day we were joined by Ash and Zac, who began surveying a horizontal passage reaching out from the base of Narnia while the original team began surveying the sloping chamber surrounded by ice formations in the opposite direction. The former group had considerably more success, bagging a grand total of 100 metres of horizontal walking phreas before Ash, true to form, promptly killed the lead. Meanwhile, Team Narnia made excruciatingly slow progress surveying down to another pitch around 30 metres away from the main chamber, which they then bolted (excruciatingly slowly). I was dealt one of the biggest disappointments of my entire life when Big Tom eventually dropped down this hole of choss, frozen waterfall and ice chunks to announce that it was completely choked at the bottom. After days of telling ourselves it surely wouldn’t go anywhere, with this latest discovery we had dared to dream only to be crushed a short while later. But at least we had found some nice ice formations.


An example of said formations. Some even survived Tom's crowbar-assisted efforts at improving pitch safety. (Photo credits: Lizzie)

However, the saga did not end there... determined not to let this be the end, I descended down next to Tom and began casting wildly around for some continuation in this latest bit of cave, a vertical tube roughly two metres in diameter floored with fallen rock. I discovered two small holes to the left and right, barely big enough to fit a head in but deep and echoing when rocks or primal screams were cast into them. Lizzie by this stage had decided any further effort was futile and, abandoning the hapless males to their desperate scrabbling, prusiked gracefully out of the cave. Not to be dissuaded, I managed to haul enough rocks away from the left-hand entrance to reveal a squeeze just large enough to accommodate a caver. Tom tried it first and quickly decided he didn’t fancy it, so I stripped off my SRT kit and wriggled in to ascertain that the floor of the chamber was in fact a wedged boulder over a large rift. I got no further as Lizzie was waiting for us on the surface and another storm blowing in, but we left feeling vindicated; Tempest was continuing, and Tomb Raider was born.


The "hopeless" squeeze, sans SRT kit... (Photo credits: Lizzie)

Our final day in Tempest was also conveniently our last day on the Plateau before leaving Expo. Having espoused the virtues of our baby to the others at Top Camp, we managed to convince a small tourist team to come and visit while we beavered away at Tomb Raider. We had it in our heads that a rope was needed to get down the rift, and throwing caution (and cave conservation) to the wind, we planned to extend the opening with hammer and chisel to enable entry on-rope. After Ely and myself had blasted away for an hour, we realised that it was actually quite possible to down-climb the rift safely without needing the rope. All our effort was for nothing, but at least we’d had fun, I told myself through gritted and gritty teeth.


...which widened into this promising stretch of rift. (Photo credits: Lizzie)


Merryn doing unspeakable things with a disto at the end of Tomb Raider rift.

Having assembled a crack surveying team of the smallest members of the party, we clambered into a deep and narrow rift with another impressive frozen waterfall at one end. I bounded ahead, squeaking excitedly about drafts and continuations, before sadly discovering that the lead crapped out in every possible direction. Disappointed but content with what we had achieved, we whipped round with the disto and collected photographic evidence before hauling out the ropes and saying goodbye to Tempest for the last time.


More ice formations in Tomb Raider. My desperate prayers to the gods of cave conservation went unanswered.


Returning to the top of the rift, we were greeted by Tom "frozen wizard" Phillips. He was only mildly hypothermic.

All in all, this was a fun project to have for our last week. It was a shame not to leave further leads to be explored on the second half of Expo, but we still left satisfied; I felt especially pleased to have found the rift in Tomb Raider, demonstrating that blind obstinacy sometimes bears results. Ultimately, the whole escapade goes to show that prospecting can be just as fun as deep caving, and provides a good environment for expedition newcomers to hone their skills.

All photos mine except where credited.